BOSTON (AP) – Deborah Robinson had no money, no phone and no idea what to do when her daughter began complaining about abdominal pain and lost her appetite.

So, Robinson’s attorney told jurors Friday, the single mother tried to care for the sick girl as best she knew – and she thought she was making progress when the girl started to eat more and the swelling on her abdomen subsided.

But early on Aug. 3, 2005, her daughter appeared to be unconscious. Robinson ran to a pay phone near her apartment in a public housing project to call 911. EMTs and paramedics were shocked at what they saw when they arrived: a teenage girl lying on a couch, wearing just a shirt and a diaper, so emaciated that her ribs and the tendons in her neck showed through her skin. Fluid oozed from a hole just below her belly button – left by a botched naval piercing.

Doctors said was near death from a severe infection caused by the botched piercing. Robinson was charged with endangering the life of her 13-year-old daughter by not seeking medical attention sooner. As her trial began Friday, Robinson’s lawyer told jurors that Robinson was not the indifferent mother prosecutors describe, but was trying to care for her child.

“This story is a story of poverty, of ignorance, of a single mother with two children trying to do the best that she could do with very little resources,” Janet Macnab said in opening statements.

But Assistant District Attorney David Deakin told jurors that Robinson watched her daughter become weak, emaciated and incontinent over a period of weeks and did not call a doctor or seek any medical attention. Deakin said the girl became so weak that she did not have the strength to walk up the stairs to sleep in her bedroom or to use the bathroom.

He said Robinson put a bucket next to the couch and began using adult diapers for her daughter when she became incontinent.

“It was not until her daughter was in a state where she was totally unresponsive, … it was only then that the defendant called for medical help,” Deakin said.

Robinson, 39, is charged with wantonly and recklessly permitting substantial bodily injury to a child under 14, a felony that carries a maximum prison term of five years.

On Monday, emergency medical workers described what the girl looked like when they arrived at Robinson’s Hyde Park apartment.

“I could see all her ribs exposed through her skin, her eyes were sunken in … she looked very fragile,” said EMT Donald Efstathiou. “She was very, very sick-looking. She was emaciated, malnourished. She just wasn’t right.”

But Macnab told jurors that Robinson’s daughter will testify for her mother.

“You are going to hear her say that she didn’t feel that sick. … You’re going to hear that everyone thought she was getting better,” Macnab said.

During an earlier court hearing, Macnab described Robinson as “borderline mentally retarded.” On cross-examination by Macnab, Efstathiou acknowledged that he had described Robinson as “clueless,” “not very intelligent” and “not realizing how sick her child was.”

Prosecutors said the girl, now 14, dropped from 115 pounds to 75 pounds after a massive infection spread through her abdomen when she perforated her intestine after attempting to pierce her own belly button. The Associated Press is not identifying the girl to protect her privacy.

For nearly a week, doctors didn’t know if the girl would survive, Deakin said. The girl, who was placed in state custody, fully recovered after multiple surgeries and rehabilitation, he said. She is now living with relatives, who have also taken in her 16-year-old brother, said Denise Monteiro, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Social Services.

Robinson has been held in jail since her arrest in August 2005.

Macnab said she cannot afford to post the $2,500 cash bail set by a judge.

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Editor’s Note: Denise Lavoie is a Boston-based reporter covering the courts and legal issues. She can be reached at dlavoie(at)ap.org

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